Guinea-Bissau Consulate, Fajara

After a welcome shower I walked down to Lucas Jatta’s “office”, the palm grove opposite Kotu police station and met up with Akoli, Lucas’ nephew and demonstrated the use of the IBM Thinkpad, I brought with me to give to George, Lucas’ nineteen year old son. As Akoli didn’t know what a floppy disc was I thought I might be wasting the new battery I’d bought for the laptop and shut it down. I thought I’d have the chance to meet up with George on my return from Guinea-Bissau and iron out any problems he might be having with the machine; this was not to be. Lucas had finished his afternoon shift, up his trees, and after bucket showering, outlined his plan for our trip. This was to get me to pay Moudu 3000 Dalasi a day for use of his four-wheel drive, plus his hotel expenses. I’d agreed to pay Lucas 1000 Dalasi a day for four days, as a compensation for taking time of his work; though in reality Lucas would be very lucky if he made 1000 Dalasi, about £25, for a whole seven days of palm wine selling. The plan was to show him the possibility of an alternate way to make some money, some wealthy package tourist may well be able to pay £100 a day for guide and driver but this tourist was going to travel African style. 

If we were to take bush taxi to Bissau, Lucas suggested we set off next morning, as soon as I’d picked up a Guinean visa. Lucas particularly wanted me to see the capital city of his homeland, before visiting his ancestral village, which seemed a good plan to me; a chance to find out more about the country’s culture. No one I’d spoken to had heard of Guinea-Bissau and even the Foreign Office website said, “Few British tourists visit here”.

As Britain doesn’t even have a Guinea-Bissau consulate, I was prepared for some delay in just getting a visa sorted; so leaving a day early seemed a wise plan. As it turned out it only took about three-quarters of an hour to hand in my completed form, along with one passport photo and a 250 Dalasi fee. The wait seemed even shorter as Lucas had brought a fresh litre of palm wine for breakfast, which he insisted we finish before taking a taxi from the consulate building, in Fajara, to the bush taxi stand in Serrakunda, the first of many bus stops that we’d visit in the next few days.